


Where the Ocean Meets the Sky

by Arsenic



Category: Slave Breakers - maculategiraffe
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Light BDSM, Light Bondage, Long Live Feedback Comment Project, M/M, Multi, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-19 08:20:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22674700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arsenic/pseuds/Arsenic
Summary: Bran and Yves want Jer to take a trip and watch over a couple of the businesses new charges.  A trip on a boat owned and piloted by Holden's childhood flame.
Relationships: Jer/Bran/Pavel Kareyev, Jer/Lee (Slave Breakers), Jer/Lee (Slave Breakers)/Andrei Taganov/Pavel Kareyev, Jer/Pavel Kareyev (Slave Breakers), Jer/Yves (Slave Breakers), Jer/Yves/Pavel Kareyev, Lee (Slave Breakers)/Andrei Taganov
Comments: 62
Kudos: 36





	Where the Ocean Meets the Sky

**Author's Note:**

  * For [egelantier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/egelantier/gifts).



> This is not beta'ed, because it falls in the category of SO DEEPLY JUST FOR ME that I decided fuck it. Also, I'm up way past my bedtime to post this, so that's gonna be awesome tomorrow.
> 
> Uh. There are so many things in my head to say about this. Mac, if you end up seeing/reading this, I just hope you feel I did you justice. I realize I'm coming around like twenty years late and fifteen dollars short.
> 
> A, this is so deeply your fault that of all the things that have been your fault in my life, and there have been many, this outshines them like the fucking sun. Love you forever and always.

Jer stared into his honeysuckle-lavender latte and thought, _I really should know better by now._ Meanwhile, Bran washed dishes and pretended as though he wasn’t there and Yves just watched Jer, calm and too damn patient for his own good. Or Jer’s.

He said, “So, Bran, out of curiosity, when you said ‘I’ve been working on something special for you,’ was that code for ‘I told Yves we couldn’t just get you drunk and put you on the ship, but a fancy coffee drink might do the trick’?”

Bran turned off the sink, whipped around and flicked two palmfuls of water at Jer. Which most likely meant _yes._ Annoyingly, it was a really good coffee drink. And Jer had become stupidly weak for good coffee drinks.

Yves made a sound that was probably a cut-off laugh and grabbed a tea towel to wipe Jer’s face. He said, “You make it sound so dire. You’ve wanted to see the Artenan Islands since you left this place to go travel to the ends of the earth. Or, as it turns out, wherever a train or car could get you. Which did not include Artenia, because you need a boat. This is a boat.”

“A yacht, really. Nothing but the finest for our Jer,” Bran said with a smile that was just a hint _too_ angelic, the little shit.

“A yacht with Holden’s childhood flame and two wayward kittens,” Jer said flatly.

“Holden’s childhood flame is also our business’s biggest sponsor, which, as an aside, is keeping me in food whilst I solve the Guay-Diemme theorem,” Yves pointed out. “And those two kittens need a trade. Besides, it’s hardly as if you’d be doing this for free. We’d be signing you on as a consultant.”

“You want me to babysit, not consult.” Jer took another sip of his coffee. Still insultingly good. “Also, I think you made that Gay Dime Theory thingy up.”

Yves regally ignored Jer slandering his academic pursuits. “I want you to make sure Lord Kareyev actually teaches them ship navigation.”

Jer blinked. “Wait. You—does Holden know about this plan?”

Yves stole his fucking coffee and took a sip. “He doesn’t really need to unless you say yes. And honestly, I own a third of the company, so unless he pulls a veto and Alix doesn’t veto his veto, it’s not like he can stop me from putting you on the payroll anyway.”

Jer took his coffee back. “That is not the point and you know it. You’re putting me on that boat so that Holden’s not-love-of-his-life won’t take advantage of kids who…can’t snap back.”

“Yes,” Yves said. “Because I can trust you.”

It shouldn’t land like a punch to Jer’s sternum. For one thing, Yves wasn’t dramatic at all, it was simply a statement. For another, no shit they could trust him. Still, it took everything Jer had not to rub at his chest. “We’re sure Kareyev has the skills?”

“He was Royal Navy for a few years after—after Holden and before David and Lisa’s mother. A bought commission, but evidently they trained him in how to run a ship, and he did so.”

Bran said, “He called it his way of playing peasant. He sounded…like you, actually, as though he knew he was being ridiculous.”

“It is ridiculous,” Jer said. It was also interesting. Jer kept that thought to himself. 

“Maybe. But if it’s real, then it’s another career we can train people in, and that’s worth its weight in gold.” Yves sounded tired. 

Jer said, “One trip. The Artenan Islands and back. A month, total. Regular consulting fee. And all I’m required to do is make Lord Kareyev keep his hands to himself.”

Yves leaned forward and pressed his lips to Jer’s, a type of emphatic thanks, before bounding off, most likely to get the paperwork signed prior to Jer changing his mind. After a moment, Bran asked, “Want another latte?”

“Only if I get to fuck you over this counter while enjoying it.”

Bran laughed. “Deal.”

* * *

Argounov had owned a personal train car, a limo, and a small flightcraft. He had not owned a boat. In point of fact, until Jer walked up the gangplank to Kareyev’s craft, Jer had only ever seen boats. And only on his travels. He was pretty sure this was not your normal watercraft. It was a floating house. A floating nobleman’s house.

Kareyev was waiting to greet him. He held out his hand with a, “Welcome, Mr. Eskelson.”

Jer shook his hand. “Jer.” He wasn’t going to tell this man that he often looked over his shoulder to figure out who was being addressed when someone used his last name.

“Jer, then. You’ll return the favor and call me Pavel?”

“Sure,” Jer agreed. Pavel smiled, small and shy. Jer wondered if this man had been like Bran in the first flush of youth, if Holden had a type. Probably.

“Could I give you a tour? There are four cabins, mine, the one I’ve assigned for your use, the one which will house the cook and domestic servant I’ve hired for this trip, and the one that Ms. Cassis and Mr. Dolph will be sharing. There’s a galley with space for eating in, and of course the bridge. As I informed your employer, you are welcome in any and all areas, although I request that you knock should a door be closed.”

Jer looked at him for a second and then said, “Breathe.”

“Pardon?”

“Breathe. I’m not going to…bite or yell or…whatever it is you seem to think I’m going to do.”

It took a second, but after that, Pavel took the instruction, pulling in a slow breath, some of the tension bleeding out of his shoulders. “I apologize. You—you’ve no idea the lecture Holden gave me as to your care and safekeeping.”

Jer couldn’t help the bark of laughter that ripped itself from his chest. “What an asshole.”

Pavel once again looked startled, but he didn’t tense up again, and after a moment he smiled. “If so, an asshole who loves you very much.”

_Inasmuch as he’s capable._ Jer said, “He’s just possessive. You said something about a tour?”

Pavel hesitated, and then winged his arm like Jer had seen Argounov do for Laura, or Holden for Alix, about a million times. Jer considered ignoring it, except for how he was reluctantly charmed by the gesture. In the end, he accepted it as offered.

* * *

Ilein Cassis had a slightly darker coloring than most Lotharians, suggesting that someone in her family line had come from one of the countries further south. There wasn’t much immigration into Lotharia, but it hadn’t been unheard of late in the last century. She was tall and lithe and had scars on her wrists that made it pretty clear how Holden had been able to purchase her. Jer suspected she was twenty, perhaps twenty-one. 

The only way Jer knew Viktor Dolph was fifteen was because anything younger would have been illegal. He looked about twelve. He’d probably been purchased upfront from him parents.

They called Pavel ‘Captain,’ and did everything he said without complaint. Viktor tended to get so excited about being able to see a fish jumping, or what the clouds looked like that day, that he’d all-but gone overboard three times within the first day. Ilein appeared to enjoy the way Pavel explained why he made them do certain things, and had a deft hand with tying knots, which cheered her.

They wanted to be here, to learn, and Pavel wanted to teach. He was skilled at it. Jer wasn’t sure what he was actually doing here except becoming used to the taste of sea air on his tongue, figuring out which stars were where in the night sky—with help from Pavel—and ogling Pavel in the afternoons, when the sun was at its zenith, and he would strip to nothing more than linen pants.

Breakfast and lunch weren’t at set times, it was just a matter of wandering into the galley. If Eirik, the cook, was there, he was generally happy to make something. Otherwise, there was almost always cheese and bread, or something else with which a quick meal could be made.

Dinner, though, involved all the residents of the ship eating on deck, if the weather was nice enough, or crammed into the galley and its eating area. Viktor would tell stories an older sister had once imparted to him, before her sale. Maja, who kept the living areas of the ship almost offensively clean, was well-read, and could summarize books she’d finished rather neatly. Pavel usually had a story or two about Lisa or David, and Jer occasionally pitched in with something Bran or Lee had done. Depending on his mood, sometimes he could tell a story from Argounov’s, about Holden. That was harder, though. Even now, it was nearly impossible to take himself back there without also feeling the living death that he’d spent so many years in after they’d left.

It was pleasant, though, overall. On the fourth day, Pavel taught the kids how to steer onto the shore of an island. There was barely enough land to call it that, mostly it was a collection of rocks and trees that had grown out of the water. 

They spent the day on the small beach that was more pebbles and broken shells than sand. The water was far too cold to swim in, but it was nice, Jer had to admit, to feel ground that didn’t rock under his feet. Pavel made a fire on the beach and Eirik brought marshmallows out. As the sun set, Jer watched the planes of Pavel’s face in the flames and considered that Holden had probably given the warning speech about breaking things to the wrong person.

* * *

After that, there was no sight of land anywhere for days. A storm hit on the third day and Jer spent most of it vomiting up everything he’d ever eaten. When the sea had settled, he made his way to the deck on shaky legs, certain that one of the kids would have been swept overboard and he was going to have to explain to Yves and Bran that he’d _lost a kid_ and deal with their understanding, disappointed faces. He was fine with punching Holden’s face when it got that expression. Yves and Bran, not so much.

He didn’t even let himself think about his _own_ response to Ilein or Viktor being gone. When he reached the deck, though, despite the three of them being drenched through and looking as if a stiff wind might blow them over, Pavel, Ilein, and Viktor were all there. Jer’s relief was almost nauseating in and of itself and he had to take several breaths.

Jer met Pavel’s eyes and without anything being said, the two of them took to getting the kids below-deck, into a shower, and to bed. It was the middle of the afternoon, but Ilein was having trouble focusing her eyes, and Viktor fell asleep standing in the shower.

Pavel shut the door to the kids’ room and started toward his own with a warm, “Thank you, I believe I’ll—”

Jer caught him as he stumbled. “All right.”

He wasn’t at his strongest, having been sick for several hours straight, but he was strong enough to hold Pavel upright. Pavel struggled a bit and Jer let go, listening to the apologies tumbling out from Pavel’s mouth. Testing something, Jer said with a calm certainty, “Quiet.”

Pavel put a hand to the wall for support. “Don’t—do not use that voice. Not right now, when I am…not right now.”

Softly, Jer said, “Sure. Not right now. But let’s agree that we’re both thinking we’ll…make other decisions later and for the moment, let me help you get to bed.”

Pavel looked at him, eyes struggling to remain open, damp hair sticking to his face. “I—that would be nice. Help.”

Jer nodded. “I’ve got you.”

Pavel pushed away from the wall and seemed to sway in direct counterpoint to the rhythm of the water beneath them. Jer swept him up. He wasn’t a small man by any means, but he was smaller than Jer, and if it was a bit of a struggle, well, Jer liked a challenge now and then.

He got Pavel into the boat’s master suite, the one room with a bathroom included. Jer set Pavel on his feet and stripped him without hesitation, then herded him into the shower and gently, thoroughly cleaned him. Pavel made a sound in his throat while Jer was washing his hair, massaging in the manner that came instinctively after so many years of doing so in service. Jer smiled, because the sound hadn’t been sexual, but rather one of pure comfort, and it was sweet. In an odd way, it reminded him of Bran, the way he was always made happy by the simplest of pleasures.

Pavel’s eyes stayed closed as Jer dried him off. He asked, “Where do you keep your night clothing, if you wear any?”

Pavel’s eyes came open at that, above a rather charming flush. He said, “I—I do. Wear—” He shook his head. “The dresser, bottom drawer.”

Jer grabbed whatever was on top and helped Pavel into the matched pajama set. In the corner of Jer’s mind that wasn’t starting to give into his own exhaustion, he noted it was cute, how Pavel wore actual pajamas. Once dressed, Pavel rolled under the covers.

Jer flicked off the light in the cabin. His hand was on the door when Pavel asked, in the smallest voice Jer had ever heard, “Ah. Would you mind—that is, well, it’s been some time since—” A flurry of whispered swearing followed and Jer, too tired to do anything else, laughed.

“I was gonna go back to my cabin and sleep. Would you rather I stayed here?”

“I would. Rather you stayed, that is. If—if it’s not too much of a bother.”

Jer walked back, stripping to his underwear as he went, and crawled underneath the covers. It wasn’t that Jer disliked sleeping by himself, on the contrary, the ability to sprawl as he so pleased was something he never thought he’d get enough of. But at over a week on the sea, he also missed the feel of waking up with Lee on his chest, clinging like a limpet, Bran snuggling in as though he could make himself fit inside Jer, Yves’ making it clear that Jer was there to be the big spoon, even Holden’s possessive way of colonizing Jer in his sleep. On land, when he traveled, he went without. Here—here he evidently didn’t have to.

“C’mere,” he said, pulling Pavel toward him, and Pavel came, sleepy and warm.

* * *

Jer woke to the feel of Pavel’s eyes on him and ravenous hunger. His stomach made the latter known. Pavel said, “Eirik brought trays this morning. I need to give him a raise.”

Jer looked over at the tray, which had clear signs that Pavel had already broken his fast, and yet was still stocked with an insulated beverage container, some cheeses, a few hard-boiled eggs, dried mango slices, and four pieces of toast with butter and jam on the side. “Definitely.”

The insulated mug, as it turned out, had a strong breakfast tea with some cream. Jer sipped at it in appreciation and started on the toast. “I take it the kids did a good job? In the storm?”

“Ilein’s a quicker learner than Viktor, but he makes up for it with perseverance. They’ll both be a good addition to a crew.”

“You know Yves is never going to leave you alone, now, right?” Jer nibbled at a mango slice.

“Jer,” Pavel said.

Jer laughed. “Figured I’d give you a reprieve, but if you want to talk now, we can do that.”

Pavel rubbed a hand over his face. “Sometimes I think I’ve spent my life waiting. It’s been…isolating.”

“Or maybe slavery just does a number on us all, even the owners, assuming they’re human enough to notice.”

Pavel blinked. “I—yes, perhaps.”

“If he had been another noble, would you have bucked convention to be with him?”

It was Pavel’s turn to laugh, if only a bit. “I’m uncertain. I was a teenager. It is a uniquely stupid phase of experience. And I have never been all that rebellious, good at thinking outside the constraints placed on the world.”

Sipping at his tea, Jer acknowledged the honesty of the assessment with a tilt of his head. “And now? What do you want now?”

Pavel shook his head. “No. What do _you_ want?”

Instinctively, Jer wanted to lash out, to tell Pavel what Jer wanted was none of his business. But it was the flinch reaction of someone who had been allowed neither desires nor badly-kept secrets for most of his life. Instead, he took a breath. “Sexually?”

Pavel blushed, but he kept his gaze steady. “If that is what you wish to tell me about.”

“I feel like it’s fairly clear that I want to fuck you over every surface on this boat, though, so I’m pretty sure that’s not what you’re asking.”

This time Pavel’s laughter was louder, choked out, a surprise to him. “Good lord.”

Jer grinned with all his teeth. “So. _Pasha_. What is it you want?” he asked in the very same tone he’d told the man to be quiet the day before.

Pavel looked down at the floor for a long while, long enough that Jer was thinking about how to accept rejection and extract himself gracefully. He’d just about come up with an exit strategy when Pavel brought his gaze back up and said, “Whatever you’re willing to give.”

* * *

A few months after Jer’s papers had been transferred to Holden, Yves won one of their chess games. Jer hadn’t even known about the games until then, wouldn’t have found out except for the fact that Yves wanted a partner in crime for his boon. Yves had taken his time teaching Jer how to tie knots that would hold a person—Holden, in that case—but not harm them. That was also the night Jer learned that Holden _definitely_ got off on Yves being didactic. 

The evening after the storm, Jer joined Pavel on the deck for a walk after dinner. When Pavel stopped to gaze out at the seemingly-endless water, Jer asked softly, “Bring any rope that’s not intended to anchor this thing?”

Pavel glanced over at him. “If I say yes, is it going to seem like I was planning to take advantage of the two students on my boat?”

It was a fair question. Normally, Jer thought, the answer would probably be yes. Except for the part where, “If you say yes, I’m going to know Holden wasn’t the only one who gave you a talking to before we left port.”

Jer would have put money on the fact that the blush on Pavel’s face went down to his toes. Laughing, Jer said, “Lemme guess: Yves made a list of things you should bring with, Bran earnestly mentioned some things I really like, and possibly, they recruited Lee to stand there looking hazy-eyed.”

“You are loved by a number of truly terrifying people,” Pavel told him without a hint of irony.

The thought of Bran and Lee being terrifying was both hilarious and gratifying, in the sense that Pavel _saw_ that in them, understood that despite being built out of puppies and cupcake icing, in Bran’s case, and six matchsticks and some tooth floss, in Lee’s, both of them could destroy worlds, should they decide to.

Jer leaned against the railing. “What would Lisa and David have threatened me with? Or offered me?”

Pavel seemed to consider it. “I…don’t know. Since Yulia passed—she was lovely, you know. Kind and compassionate and everything I should have looked for the first time. And I was too broken to give her anything she might have truly deserved. After that, I…I made the children my life. My world. They’ve never had to contend with a sexual partner, let alone anything more.”

Jer let the silence settle between them. It wasn’t uncomfortable. There was something calming in recognizing they both had fault lines. Eventually he said softly, “I want to tie you up. I want to have my way with you, to give you exactly what I want to give and have you be incapable of taking anything else.”

Pavel shivered a bit, but it was not cold, and there wasn’t a trace of fear in his posture. “Yes. Please. Sir.”

It was Jer’s turn to shiver, then. “Your cabin, now. Be cleaned and naked when I get there.”

Pavel was already obeying, his “yes sir,” a note delivered on the wind.

* * *

Jer took his time going down to the cabin. In part because he wanted to grab some water and food from the galley for afterward, and in part because he wanted to give Pavel a while not to just properly prepare, but to stew. It was always interesting to see how people reacted to being made to wait. Bran and Lee both worked themselves up, either in anticipation or anxiety, depending on the set of circumstances. Yves sank into himself, his own head. Holden was a fucking wild card, as with all things.

Pavel, it seemed, did a bit of everything. When Jer closed the cabin door behind him, and set the snacks on the dresser, he noticed Pavel trembling. It wasn’t exactly obvious. He had knelt up in the middle of the bed, making for a rather tempting tableau, and the shivering was ever so slight. But Jer, for all that he didn’t have the finesse of Holden or Yves, paid attention.

He ran a finger down Pavel’s spine and asked, “Scared?”

Pavel smiled, clearly already floating a bit. “Only in the way I want to be.”

Jer laughed and discovered that Pavel’s flushing did, in fact, suffuse his chest. He went to pick up the rope Pavel had set on the nightstand. “Hands behind your head.”

He tied them rather simply. If Pavel struggled overmuch, he’d be free. Jer said, “You’re not to struggle.”

“Yes sir.”

Jer took Pavel’s face in his hands and kissed him, slow and deep and meant to steal his breath. Admittedly, he got a little distracted by how sweet Pavel’s kisses were, arching into Jer with the desperation of a starving man. Eventually, though, he pulled back and tipped Pavel onto his back, causing him to blink owlishly.

Jer bent one leg and tied the calf to the thigh, then repeated it on the other leg. He used those ties and another length of rope to pull Pavel’s legs open until Pavel made an involuntary noise. Jer asked, “Too much?”

He shook his head. “But, no more?”

“No more,” Jer agreed. “And you’ll tell me if adjustments are needed or you lose feeling.”

Pavel breathed out. “Yes sir.”

“Good.” Jer raked his fingernails down Pavel’s chest. “That’s good.”

While Jer wasn’t much for foreplay, experience with Bran and Lee had taught him that a little bit of sweet torture could go a long way. He kissed Pavel some more, traveling down his throat, sucking curiously at his nipples. He sank down and bit into the meat of Pavel’s thigh. Pavel went rigid and moaned, “Oh, please—”

Jer let go. “Okay?”

“Again, please. _Again_.”

Oh. Well, okay then. Jer repeated the treatment on Pavel’s other thigh. Pavel’s cock, which had already been red and straining, jerked. Jer put his hands over the bites and said, “You don’t come until I say,” before swallowing Pavel in one smooth, lazy glide.

Pavel whimpered and begged, but Jer noticed he didn’t struggle against the bonds. Jer pressed into the bite marks. Pavel said, “Oh, fuck, please, Jer, please—”

Jer drew off. “Jer?”

“Sir! Please, sir—”

Jer smacked his cock. He went white and seemed to forget to breathe for a moment. Jer put his hands to Pavel’s chest and said, “Breathe.”

Pavel did. Jer looked into his eyes and while Pavel was looking back, it was obvious that he was flying. Jer said, “I’m going to fuck you, at my pace, at whatever length I so desire. If you can come without help, you’re allowed to, but know that I won’t stop fucking you just because you’ve come. Understood?”

“Yes sir,” whispered, his tone a little blissed out.

“So well behaved,” Jer said, lubing his cock up. “Did you prep yourself? It’s all right if you didn’t, that wasn’t part of my instructions.”

“I did, sir. You—you had said…I was hopeful.” Pavel giggled.

Jer laughed and pressed the tip of his cock in. “Presumptuous, more like.”

“You—” Pavel sounded as if he’d planned to argue, or at least try, but Jer pressed in a bit more and instead he arched into it and made a sound of pleasure.

Jer put his hands on Pavel’s hips. “Ah ah ah. My pace.”

Pavel moaned, which didn’t dissuade Jer from taking his time at all. Prepped or not, he had no idea when the last time Pavel’d had penetrative sex was, he wasn’t exactly a small guy, and also, it was just fun watching Pavel work to be still. It took a bit, and Pavel was biting his lip and occasionally sobbing, but Jer eventually seated himself, pressing his hips against Pavel’s thighs.

He stayed there for a long moment, long enough that Pavel started shaking, and then he pulled nearly all the way out, and slammed back in. Pavel cried, “Yes, please, yes, like—”

Jer bent over and bit the lip Pavel had been biting a moment before, then kissing him, drinking him. He wound a hand in Pavel’s hair and jerked even as he pounded down into Pavel and Pavel said, “Fuck,” and came. Jer fucked him through it, through the tightening of his muscles, the way they loosened in the aftermath, the way he made little breathy, broken sounds every time Jer drove in, until his orgasm hit as well, heated and intense.

When the rush of it passed, Jer breathed out slowly. He was still holding Pavel tightly to himself. Carefully, he laid Pavel back down, and undid the ropes, massaging the muscles as he went. He rolled off the bed and walked into the bathroom, wetting down a cloth and palming a dry one. He cleaned himself perfunctorily before seeing to Pavel, who was stretching out a bit. Pavel smiled at Jer, and Jer said, “You’re not quite with me, are you?”

“Mm,” Pavel agreed, shaking his head.

“Uh huh.” Jer threw the cloths in the hamper and grabbed the water and peanut butter granola bars he’d brought. He rested his back against the wall and hauled Pavel in between his legs. Cracking the bottle of water, he held it to Pavel’s lips. “One sip at a time, no rushing.”

In between sips, Jer fed him pieces of the bar, taking quick bites for himself. When they were about three-fourths of the way through the bar and done with the first bottle of water, Pavel said, “That was—”

Jer took another sip and waited. Slowly, Pavel said, “I would very much like to do that again.”

Jer nibbled at his earlobe a bit and made him take another drink of water. “Glad we’re on the same page here.”

* * *

The Artenan Islands were exquisite. Jer had expected to be disappointed, as he had been by a number of things he’d heard about or seen in books as a slave, but only gotten to see in the past few years. The Islands, though, close enough to be connected by a series of highly-engineered chain bridges, far enough that the feat of the bridges was considerable, were…lush. Jer stood on the deck of the ship as it docked and said, aloud, like an idiot, “There’s an honest-to-fuck cockatoo in that tree over there.”

Thankfully, Ilein, Viktor, and Pavel were handling docking, and Eirik and Maja were consulting one another about re-stocking the ship while in port. Once they’d properly attached the gangplank and it was safe to disembark, Jer got himself on land and stood for a minute, getting his equilibrium back. As he was standing, checking out the different ships, the variety of people moving about, Pavel came to his side and asked, “Ever tasted a papaya?”

Jer shook his head. “Are they good?”

Pavel smiled, excitement infusing his features. Jer had figured out pretty quickly that Pavel liked Jer trying new things out almost as much as Jer enjoyed it himself. “I like them. Doesn’t mean you will. Want to find out?”

Jer did, so he followed Pavel into a marketplace that was both similar to the one back home and, at the same time, something wholly different. The stalls were still for clothing and jewelry, foods, both prepared and raw, children’s toys, soaps and laundry powders, all the things that people everywhere needed or found interesting. But where most vendors sold meat or poultry in Lotharia and its surrounding countries, here there was a startling variety of fish. The clothing at home was often made from wool or cotton and fairly plain-spun unless special ordered, the way the nobility did. Here it appeared to be some other material entirely, lighter and more breathable, and often came in bright hues.

Pavel found a fruit vendor and bought them a regular cornucopia of fruits Jer had read about in travel books, but never actually seen. They walked a bit further, Jer taking in how children’s games had a lot of the same basic principles no matter where you went and the sound of the Artenan language. It flowed more consistently than Lotharian. It wasn’t that the words were longer, they just seemed to meld together more. 

At the outskirts of the market was a road. The cars were smaller than what Jer was used to seeing, and there were far more bicycles sharing the road. Pavel and he ducked through traffic to get to a green on the other side, one that had plenty of trees for shade and a number of public-use tables about.

Pavel flattened the bag he’d used to carry the fruit on the table and laid the fruit atop it. He rummaged in the pack slung over his chest and pulled out a multi-purpose tool, which he used to slice up the various offerings. Then, with a smile that rivaled Lee for sweetness, he held a piece of papaya up for Jer. Smiling back—less sweetly—Jer ducked down and took it with his teeth.

The fresh sweetness of it hit him, and he said, “Yeah. Yeah, that’s good.”

* * *

They spent the next four days on the islands. Pavel was renting housing on one of the smaller islands, a series of bungalows for the six of them. In the mornings, Eirik would go to the market and come back with food for the day, generally produce and fish which he would make in a variety of ways.

Jer attempted to learn surfing from a father and daughter spending a day on the beach. He wasn’t a natural, but he liked the challenge of it, the mixture of patience and rushing adrenaline. Pavel cajoled him into riding a horse which Jer swore to never do again no matter how old he lived to be. Ilein and Viktor spent hours with him, the three of them creating sand kingdoms that Jer would draw so Bran and Lee would get to see them. Yves, when he next returned from university.

There were ruins on one of the larger islands that they took a trip to see on the third day. Jer found their breadth sweeping, especially with the awareness that the buildings would have had to have been built, layer by layer, by human hand, by people who sweated and bled under the unforgiving Artenan sun. He drew those, too. He thought he might be drawing them for a while. As they were, as they might have been, as the laborers might have seen them.

On the last evening, they all got a bit tipsy on the local guava cider, which was tricky and went to a person’s head much faster than he expected. Maja told a story of Loki, one Jer had not heard before, and Viktor asked about a star he’d never seen. Pavel explained that it was a planet, and one that merely looked different from this side of the sky than the one they were all used to.

That night, in bed, making out lazily, neither of them sober enough to want much more, Pavel asked, “The islands. Were they what you imagined? Wanted?”

Jer found the question sweet, like Pavel, impossibly so. “Yes. But it’s not enough.”

“Then I suppose you’ll just have to keep exploring,” Pavel said.

Jer noticed he didn’t say it like it was a goodbye. That…that was sweet, too.

* * *

They encountered no storms on their way back, nothing to keep them on the sea. When they reached the dock, there was a message for Pavel that his son, David, was in town and wished to accompany them back to Tenarus. Jer had spent time with David in his role as assistant counsel in the ongoing appeal of Jer’s attempted murder. Or property damage. Depending on which side you were on. 

They met up with him at a café near the train depot. David looked between them and went to go hug his father, nodding politely to Jer. “Lisa and Joseph send their regards. She’s been ill almost all mornings, and did not feel up to accompanying me. He cannot stand to have her out of his sight.”

“I’ll tell her to try dried ginger. It helped your mother,” Pavel said.

Jer said, “Congratulations, I hadn’t heard.”

“She’s keeping it between family for the moment,” David said, without seeming to see any problem in Jer’s knowing. Interesting. “Where are the others?”

Pavel gestured toward the depot. “Eirik and Maja went ahead to the station with the bags, the kids are getting food for the journey and then settling into the car. I told them we’d be along once we collected you and some food of our own.”

“I ordered coffee and sandwiches, if that will do?” David asked.

Jer wasn’t certain there would ever be a time in his life when a free man asking him for permission or an opinion of any sort would feel natural. It wasn’t even the first time David had gotten him coffee and food, they’d done it during one of the sets of depositions. But even with Pavel standing there, clearly _with_ him, it felt off. He forced himself to say, “Cream and sugar?”

“By the window, I remembered you like that.” David smiled.

“He’s good,” Jer told Pavel. “You should keep him.”

* * *

Bran and Holden were not at the station. Being completely honest with himself, Jer was a little surprised. He would have been disappointed, possibly, but Lee, Andrei, and Mona were there, and that was too pleasing for any amount of disappointment to sneak in. Lee, gorgeous, resilient, _brave_ Lee—Jer was careful not to think too hard or too long about his feelings for Lee, lest he stop exploring before he was ready just to see the other man wake up every few mornings—was all-but running toward them the moment they were off the train. He basically jumped when he reached Jer, who caught him easily, saying, “Why, hello there, beautiful.”

Lee’s grin was so broad it was hard to handle, so Jer kissed him, a defensive maneuver against how brightly he shone. More quietly he said, “Hey.”

Lee clung and said, “Missed you.”

Jer tucked Lee into his side. “Lee, have you met Lord Kareyev? I know you know his son. Lord Taganov, Mona—”

“Andrei,” Andrei said, looking at Jer, but holding his hand out for Pavel. “I believe we met at the talk on building vocational pathways for underprivileged children?”

Also known as one of Robin’s pet projects, finding ways to employ kids so they wouldn’t have to be sold and could contribute to their family for a few years before being considered adults.

“Pavel, and yes, I believe so.” He turned to Mona. “Mona, if I’m remembering correctly?”

She held out her hand. “Good memory, my lord.”

There was another round of introductions as Ilein, Viktor, Eirik, and Maja caught up to the group. Jer loosened his hold on Lee, but he stayed glued to Jer’s side. Jer was man enough to admit it was calming in some deep, under-the-skin way. As they made their way to the waiting cars, Lee leaned in and whispered, “Is he as sweet as I am under you?”

Jer grinned at the boldness of the statement, which still felt new and novel from Lee. “Nobody’s as sweet as you, darling. Not even Bran.”

“Lie,” Lee said, still smiling. 

_Not for me,_ Jer thought, but he laughed and let Lee have the last word.

* * *

Bran and Holden were at Andrei’s. Jer accepted welcome-home kisses from both of them. “Couldn’t stay away, hm?”

Bran said, “Call Yves, he says he can’t concentrate on math till he hears your voice again.”

“I’ve traveled before,” Jer pointed out.

“Not on water,” Holden and Bran said at the same time, and it sounded like something that had been discussed between them, and probably Yves, _ad nauseum_. He went to go use a phone in a quieter room as the two of them turned to get a report from Pavel, Ilein, and Viktor on how the training had gone.

He dialed the number and Yves picked up with, “Yves here.”

“Hey,” Jer said.

“Jer.” There was a fair amount of relief in Yves’ voice and Jer winced. It wasn’t that he wanted to worry the others, but staying still felt like allowing himself to remain chained. He couldn’t yet. He wouldn’t.

“How’s being a genius going?”

“My thesis work has been approved, so now it’s just bulldozing forward.”

“Mm, but your style has always been more to salt the earth before the storm.”

Yves laughed, sounding a little forlorn. “Well. What would be the point if it was easy?”

“Yves.”

“I’m all right. I am. Better than. Doing what I’ve always wanted. Just…sometimes Holden and Bran aren’t the only people it hurts, is all.”

“So you noticed, huh?”

“Took a minute.”

Or close to five years, but Jer wasn’t going to quibble. He knew he longed for the others when he was far from them. The longing just hadn’t developed to where it was strong enough to overcome the need for new sights, new places, new things to fill his mind. “I understand. Both the need to be here and the need to be doing your own thing. We’re supposed to get these opportunities in our teens, our twenties. When everything seems less finite.”

“We appreciate them more, now.”

“Sure,” Jer agreed. “Doesn’t change the wrongness of it.”

“No,” Yves said quietly.

“Wish you were here,” Jer told him. “Glad you’re not.”

“Will you…just tell me about it? For a bit?”

Jer leaned against the wall. “Yeah. I’ll start with the parts you would’ve hated.”

* * *

Whatever Holden saw in Jer’s expression when he came back, it was enough that he said, “I’ll go visit him.”

“Oh, good,” Jer said, but left it at that. He knew Holden’s learning curve was higher than most. Loving him regardless meant forgiving that most of the time.

Jer sat at the table, where an early evening meal had been set. Lee came and colonized his lap. Without really thinking, Jer pulled over the plate Lee had been eating from and held up a cube of cheese for him to take, which he did, his teeth purposely grazing Jer’s fingers. Pavel dropped his fork.

Jer looked over at him. Lee curled into Jer reflexively, which in turn instinctively infuriated Jer. Pavel said, “Sorry, I—”

His cheeks were flushed. Andrei said, “You should see what else he can do with those teeth.”

David said, “Oh my—I have…a thing. That. Needs doing.”

Mona laughed and said, “Come, it turns out I like wine, we should have a glass,” and pulled him from the room. Eirik and Maja had gone home to their families, but Ilein and Viktor were watching like this was a tennis match. Bran said, “I’ll drive the kids home,” tugging Holden in his wake as well. He turned right before leaving and mouthed at Jer, “You owe me. Details.”

Jer stroked Lee’s back and made no promises. When it was the four of them alone, Jer looked over at Andrei. “Did you have a plan, Lord Taganov?”

Lee poked him in the stomach. “Ah ah, be nice. Besides, Andrei doesn’t like being the one in charge.”

Jer raised an eyebrow at that, his gaze still on Andrei. “Is that so?”

Andrei met his gaze without saying anything, his breathing coming a little fast. Jer considered and then said, “Well, in that case, clear the table of non-serving dishes. Pavel, come bring the serving dishes to this side. You,” he said to Lee, “naked and on the table, face up.”

Andrei finished the task, and Jer motioned to him, pulling him into the same spot Lee had been the moment before. He’d never played with Andrei before, Lee being their point of commonality, but it would have been disingenuous to act as though he’d never noticed the man. Andrei was striking in a distinguished, rather patrician way. It made Jer want to fuck him up a bit.

Jer looked over at Pavel, who was watching him with hooded eyes. Jer said, “Lee makes a much prettier serving platter than regular old china, don’t you think?”

Pavel smiled, and laid out a feast of fruit, vegetables, nuts, crackers, and cheeses, atop Lee. It was artful in a way Jer wouldn’t have managed, with a deliberate eye toward aesthetics. When Pavel had finished, Jer skimmed a finger down Lee’s side, causing him to shiver. “Careful,” Jer said. “Stay still for me, gorgeous.”

He swiped a blueberry and held it to Andrei’s lips. Andrei took it gently. “I thought you were hungry.”

“Offering to feed me?” Jer asked.

Andrei and Pavel met each other’s eyes for a moment. Andrei said, “We both could.”

Pavel pulled his chair closer, and set to ever-so-sweetly torturing Lee while they took turns feeding Jer. It was heady in a way Jer hadn’t foreseen, enough to challenge his control, but he’d learned to hold on in these situations not because someone else was demanding it, no. Because he _wanted_ to.

Just as Jer was beginning to feel the pleasant edge of fullness, Lee panted, “Please.”

Jer massaged at the back of Andrei’s neck. “How big is your bed, my lord?”

Andrei smiled. “You won’t be disappointed.”

* * *

Jer picked Lee up, what was left of the food falling around them in a mess. Andrei had house-staff, though, and Jer frankly didn’t care if neither Lee nor Andrei could never face them without blushing again. 

When they reached the bedroom, Jer placed Lee down on the bed. He turned and took Andrei’s mouth in a possessive kiss before saying, “He needs cleaning, go put that pretty mouth to good use.”

Andrei obeyed, and Jer went over to where Pavel was standing, watching Andrei and Lee. “Naked, now.”

Pavel stripped even as he kept watching. Jer couldn’t blame him, the two on the bed were impossibly pretty together. Undressing himself, Jer pulled Pavel snug in front him, using the spread of Pavel’s ass to rub against. He put his hand to Pavel’s mouth and said, “Get it wet.”

Pavel whimpered and sucked one of Jer’s fingers into his mouth. Then another. On the third, Jer said, “Lee, tell Andrei what else he can do with his mouth.”

“Suck me,” Lee said, panting and throaty and not even slightly ruined by the plaintive, “please, please, Andrei,” that followed.

“Lord,” Pavel mumbled around Jer’s thumb, swallowing hard.

“Mm,” Jer agreed, and let Pavel soak his palm for a bit before pulling his hand away to close firmly over Pavel’s cock. “I’m gonna stroke this until Lee comes, whether you’ve come or not.”

Pavel said, “Yes, yes.”

Jer watched Andrei take Lee all the way down without even seeming to struggle. Lee fisted the sheets, his muscles tensing, his eyes meeting Jer’s. Jer said, “Any time, sweetheart.”

It didn’t take long. Lee’d been worked up since the minute he’d planted himself in Jer’s lap. Pavel stiffened in Jer’s arms right as Andrei was backing off and Jer milked him through the orgasm. Then he herded Pavel to bed and next to Lee. Jer said, “You two keep each other company.”

Lee cuddled into Pavel’s side sleepily, watching Jer. Jer turned to Andrei and said, “Strip for me, my lord.”

Andrei said, “You—you like calling me that when you’re bossing me around.”

Jer countered, “You like being called that while I’m bossing you around.”

Andrei undressed. Slow and with intent. He didn’t have the innocence of Pavel or the sweetness of Lee. But Jer thought he might be more eager to please than either of them. When he was fully naked, Jer said, “Oil.”

Andrei grabbed some from the nightstand and handed it to Jer, who climbed onto the bed and laid on his back, next to where Pavel and Lee were cuddling. He handed the oil right back to Andrei. “Prepare me and yourself. My lord.”

Andrei might never have been a slave, but someone had taught him how to put on a show at some point. Jer was using every trick he had to keep his hands at his sides, not just grab Andrei, flip him over, and fuck him into the mattress. As it was, Andrei’d barely gotten Jer’s cock slicked when Jer said, “Ride me. Now.”

Jer had been expecting to have to be patient, to get to enjoy Andrei working himself onto Jer’s cock. Rather, Andrei straddled him, splayed his hands on Jer’s chest and slid onto his cock in one long, hard motion. His body went taught, but his eyes fuzzed with pleasure and Jer said, “Oh, it’s like that,” put his hands on Andrei’s hips in a grip that would leave marks and used him like a cocksleeve. 

Andrei made delicious, breathy noises. Absently, Jer said, “Someone should taste those noises.”

Lee took him up on the offer, even as Pavel drew his hand down Jer’s side and wrapped it around Andrei’s cock. Jer let himself be swept along in the visual, the sensation of Andrei’s skin under his fingers, Andrei’s ass gripping his cock, the purity of his pleasure. At some point, Andrei squeezed around Jer, his legs, his ass, everything, and Jer said, “Fucking Freja’s foot,” and came so hard his vision blanked out.

He was pretty sure it was only seconds, maybe half a minute, but when it returned, fuzzy but there, Lee had pulled Andrei off Jer and onto the bed, and Pavel was returning from what was probably the en suite with warmed cloths and a few dry ones. He and Lee worked to get everyone cleaned up.

They threw the cloths over the side of the bed, and Pavel climbed back in, curling up behind Jer. Lee snuggled between Jer and Andrei. Jer asked, “Is it even eight in the evening?”

Lee kissed his chin. “Perfect time to rest before a midnight snack.”

Jer laughed. “That what the kids are calling it these days?”

* * *

Mona stole Lee away after breakfast, most likely because so far as Jer could tell those two shared everything. Andrei looked after them with the most ill-concealed mask of betrayal Jer had ever seen on someone. He didn’t call them back, though, or go after them. For a man who’d grown up as a slave owner and lived his young adult life as one, he was quite good at respecting their freedom. 

Jer said, “You’d think you were afraid of me.”

“Lee is a man who finds joy in safety, and only one of us has saved his life.”

Jer blinked. He’d been expecting a denial, or at the very least a mildly flippant dismissal. “Lord Tag—”

“ _Andrei._ ”

Pavel intervened at the sharpness in Andrei’s flinch response. “Even before he was a slave, he was a peasant, Andrei. This world is even newer for him than it is for us. Take a breath.”

Jer wanted to feel angered by having Pavel speak for him, but he wasn’t wrong, and it felt less like being spoken for than…than being spoken up for. It was strange to discover the difference mattered. Jer said, “Andrei. I saved his life. But I didn’t give him one. And if you think I have _any_ interest in taking a single thing that makes him happy from him, then I’m really not clear on what in Loki’s name I’m even doing in your household.”

Andrei rubbed a hand over his face. “Because so long as you are welcome here, the safety I provide is enough to keep him here, as well.”

Pavel said, “Oh. Uh. Andrei, darling—”

“You’re an idiot,” Jer finished for him. Pavel made a noise of polite agreement. Jer did his best not to smile, failing pretty spectacularly. “Andrei, spend two minutes actually watching the way Lee looks at you. I’d put decent money on the fact that he thinks you were created from sunbeams and sugar drops. If you said, ‘sweetheart, I’ve decided to sell the family estate and start a career in planetary exploration, we’ll be leaving earth as soon as the ink on the sale has dried,’ he’d go get some dad-hugs from Holden, spend a night cuddling with Bran, have farewell sex with me and Mona, and hop right onboard your magical traveling thinger. He’d miss us, certainly, but it wouldn’t occur to him not to go with you, because he’s so in love with you I’m not sure he thinks there was actually a time in his life when you weren’t the center of it.”

“You’re only around now and then—”

“Which means he can see things more clearly, because he doesn’t sit in the situation day in and day out,” Pavel said.

Quietly, Andrei said, “It’s simply that I do not wish to hold him back from everything he should have. But I cannot bear to let him go.”

“Good, because if you do I’m going to have to beat you to death, slowly, and that’s not only going to harm Holden’s attempted murder case, it’s going to end with me losing my freedom _again_ , which is not, to say the least, something I wish to do.”

Pavel breathed in a bit and Jer looked over to find his expression to be along the lines of I-really-should-not-be-turned-on-by-that. Jer smiled at him, promise in every line of the look.

Andrei asked, “Would you stay? For a couple of days, at least?”

“Do threats of deadly violence upon your person always get invitations of hospitality from you?”

“Only when the men issuing them are loved by my partner.”

“Only then?” Pavel said, and there was a note Jer couldn’t read in the question. It should have sounded like a joke, but there was something more.

“It’s a bonus when I’d rather enjoy it if he held me down and fucked me until I was begging him to stop. And wanted him to deny me even that mercy.”

For the first time since meeting Pavel, Jer was starting to wonder if somehow he’d gotten in over his head and not even noticed.

* * *

Four days later, Bran called and said, “Since you were the one who told Holden to take a trip and provide Yves a bit of stress relief, think you could come apologize for making me lonely?”

“What, did Greta and Alix go with him?” Jer asked.

“Jer.”

“Okay, kid. I’m coming.”

* * *

Lee kissed Jer and said, “Give some of that to Bran for me.”

Andrei hooked an arm around Lee’s midsection, rested his chin on Lee’s shoulder and said, “Until next time.”

Pavel followed Jer outside and into the car he’d called for and asked, “Should I leave this to you?”

“Not unless you want, or you need to go home. Bran would’ve mentioned if he needed me by myself. I think he’s curious, honestly.”

“About young Holden?” 

Jer shook his head. “Nah, I’ve told him plenty about that. About pre-slavery Holden.”

Pavel blinked and looked out the window. “Pre-sold Holden.”

“Yes,” Jer said. It wasn’t that he held Pavel’s late-adolescent naivety against him, but rather that he wasn’t willing to excuse it, either. A system in which people were owned required little more than the lack of recognition that such a thing was a problem, and even if Pavel had learned otherwise, it had at been at a pretty high cost.

“And you?”

“Me?”

“Do _you_ want me to come?” 

There was nothing manipulative about the question. He was asking in all sincerity. Given that, Jer took a minute to consider. Spending time with just Bran wasn’t something he often got a chance to do, and while he wasn’t in love with Bran, he loved him. That said, when he thought about Pavel going home, he…didn’t like that thought. Oh, he could handle it. It wasn’t terrifying or depressing or anything horrible. He just much preferred that Pavel stay with him.

“Yes,” he said. “I want you to be there. If it’s not going to bother you to stay under Holden’s roof, with his wife and his lover.”

“I find it hard to even remember who Holden is when you’re near.”

The comment, which was said rather lightly, hit Jer like a sucker punch to the stomach, something he was more familiar with than he would have preferred. After a moment of silence, Pavel glanced over at him. “Too honest?”

Jer took a breath. “I’ll get over it.”

“If you cannot, well. It would be kind of you to let me know.”

Jer leaned in and kissed him. “I won’t play with you, not like that.”

Pavel nodded in appreciation and went back to watching the scenery.

* * *

Bran opened the door with flour in his hair, on his face, and in general everywhere about his person. Jer would have laughed, except for how tension visibly left Bran’s body upon seeing him. Instead, he walked in, Pavel following him, and pulled Bran into a kiss, asking, “What’d you make us, kitchen boy?”

Bran hummed into the kiss a bit, burrowing into Jer. “Sweet things.”

Jer did laugh, then. “What’s sweeter than you?”

Bran grinned. “Bird’s milk cake.”

Pavel said, “That is my favorite.” Then, after a second, “Did Holden remember that?”

Bran said, “He remembers a lot of things about you.”

They had made it to the kitchen by that time. The cake was in pride of place on the counter, but Bran had also laid out a tray of cheeses and fruits. There was a tea kettle heating. A perfect afternoon snack. Jer snatched a clump of grapes. “He say how long he was planning on staying with Yves?”

“Couple more weeks. Yves was…really pleased to see him.”

Underscoring the fact that he should have gone well before now, but Jer left it alone. Bran poured the tea, fixing Jer’s the way he liked it, and inquiring as to Pavel’s preferences. Once they were quietly sipping, Bran asked, “Are you going to go sailing again?”

Jer split a piece of cheese. “You were the one who put me on the boat, Bran.”

“Well, sometimes I’m too clever for my own good,” Bran retorted. “Although I suppose if neither Lee nor I can get you to just settle, then knowing someone’s watching your back is a good option.”

“That’s not Pavel’s job,” Jer said.

Bran looked over at Pavel. “Let’s ask Lord Kareyev what he thinks of that.”

Pavel took a sip of tea, and cut into his cake. “Lord Kareyev.” He brought the bite to his mouth and chewed, without any apparent hurry. “I don’t suppose either of you thought of me as more than just a title until—well, I’m not sure Bran does. I’ll presume you started somewhere on the water.”

Figuring Pavel had given enough today without having all that much returned in terms of emotional bravery, Jer said, “That first smile. Maybe even a bit before. You reminded me of Bran.”

Both men blinked at that. Jer shrugged. “He has your brand of desire-to-please.”

Bran reconsidered Pavel, who in turn got very interested in his cake. Bran said, “Maybe I have you to thank for Holden keeping me.”

“No,” both Jer and Pavel said at once, Pavel sliding the cake plate away as though nauseated. Jer pushed the tea toward him. Pavel took a sip and repeated, “No. I know the story. Or at least the edited version. Enough to know what you did, you did all by yourself. If anything, my perceived betrayal was probably something you had to overcome. We’re both his type, that doesn’t make you a copy of me.”

Bran tilted his head. “I—I know. Mostly. Or rather, most of the time.”

“C’mere,” Jer said, and Bran came without hesitation, letting himself be pulled into Jer’s lap.

“Will you stay? Both of you? Just for a few days. Let me get to know you,” he said to Pavel, “and keep me busy?”

Jer knew for a fact that Bran could keep himself busy on his own just fine. He’d perfected the ability in the years he’d spent pretending not to exist from time to time. “How about we keep you company?”

Bran nuzzled Jer’s neck. “With maybe a little bit of busy?”

Jer laughed. “Maybe.”

* * *

“I’m not very patient, as Bran here would tell you, if he could,” Jer said, making sure the restraints that held Bran face-up and spread-eagle on the bed were tight, but not so tight as to cut off blood-flow. He smiled down at Bran whose eyes were mischievous. Jer would bet anything he’d be smirking if he weren’t wearing a ratchet gag.

Pavel, who was sitting on Bran’s other side, said, “I can be patient.”

“I thought that might be the case. And I like to watch, so, here’s what we’re going to do: you’re going to do whatever you want to Bran, for as long as you want, and I’m going to watch and maybe talk about how pretty the two of you are together. And when you’re done with him, and he’s nice and exhausted and has been fucked within an inch of his life, I’m going to fuck him, as long and hard as I so please.”

Bran _squealed_ , the gag distorting the sound, but hardly stopping it. His hips drove up, and his cock, already hard just from being placed in the gag and cuffs, jumped. Pavel tilted his head at this and said, “What a good boy.”

Bran nodded, eagerly, almost a type of begging, given that he couldn’t speak. Pavel stroked along his sides, fingers gentle. Bran wiggled, rising into the touch. Jer said, “Almost too beautiful, isn’t he?”

Pavel smiled. “Is there such a thing?”

Jer thought of a younger Holden, untamed and broken. “Yeah. There can be.”

“Mm,” Pavel said, leaning down to suck one of Bran’s nipples into his mouth, letting the response reverberate through Bran. Bran whimpered. Jer sat back and palmed his cock.

As Jer had suspected, Pavel was extremely patient, or, perhaps just possessing an intense oral fixation, but it was something else to watch him suck and lick what seemed to be every square inch of available skin on Bran—minus his cock—down to the bottoms of his feet, which elicited actual screams of laughter and arousal.

Pavel sat back on his knees, then, having knelt at the end of the bed to get to Bran’s feet, and tossed his gaze to Jer. His eyes were almost fever bright, his pleased smile a little too sweet for comfort. Jer wanted to kiss him, wanted to make him beg Jer to take him, wanted—

Jer shook his head, steadying himself in the now. “You should use his mouth. Yours has been so nice to him, after all.”

Bran shuddered. Pavel ran a fingernail along the bottom of one of his feet. “Only you would think I was being nice.”

Jer laughed. Pavel asked, “Want to see nice?”

“All right, show me nice.”

Pavel rose and climbed onto the bed. He straddled Bran’s head, lowering his cock into the defenseless mouth but leaned forward to return the favor, using one hand to knead at Bran’s balls. Jer stood and moved to where he had a better view of the two of them.

Bran was more practiced: even without much control over anything, his eagerness and ease was clear. Pavel was a bit more clumsy, more…unsure of himself, Jer thought. Wanting this to be good, being lost in his own arousal, not having as much experience. It was a nice contrast. If Jer hadn’t already been in a settled haze of pleasure, that would have landed him there.

Bran tensed, trembling, and Jer said, “It’s okay, Bran, you can come.”

Watching Bran unravel was always a treat, no matter how many times Jer saw it. Watching Pavel deal with the overwhelming sensation of Bran’s throat tightening around him and coming in Pavel’s mouth was possibly one of the best things Jer had ever seen. Unshockingly, it didn’t take Bran all that much longer to tip Pavel over into orgasm. 

Jer unlatched the cuffs on Bran’s right wrist and ankle, and rubbed at them distractedly while watching Pavel come down. When he was blinking with some awareness, Jer said, “Why don’t you cuddle Bran while I fuck him past endurance?”

Bran moaned, and Pavel rearranged himself to curl against Bran’s left side. Jer removed the gag, massaged Bran’s jaw for a bit, rolled him on his side toward Pavel, and kissed Bran even as he slid in. Bran’s breath caught, but Jer just kissed him until it kicked in again. Bran was whining a bit, deep in his throat, and Jer pulled back to say, “Such a good boy, isn’t he, Pavel?”

“Incredibly good,” Pavel agreed, one hand splayed over Bran’s heart. 

Bran said, “That’s—that’s not fair.”

Jer laughed. “Oh, you expected me to play fair?”

“I thought you’d behave in front of Pavel.”

Jer grinned. “Pavel likes it when I misbehave.”

“I do,” Pavel said solemnly, but without an ounce of apology. “I really do.”

Jer thrust hard and Bran said, “Jer, Jer, please, okay?”

“That was all you needed to say,” Jer told him, before pulling Bran to him so hard it was almost as if he was trying to bring Bran inside of him, and coming with one last, “Good boy.”

When Jer could focus again, he noticed Bran was trembling pretty hard. He pulled out carefully and asked Pavel to get the remaining restraints, then gathered Bran up in his arms, “Hey there, kid.”

“’M’okay,” Bran mumbled into Jer’s shoulder.

“Sure, but I’m just gonna keep you here, for a bit.”

Pavel, because he was a little too good to be true—something Jer would worry over later—went and grabbed a glass of water and a few extra blankets. He helped Jer wrap two of the latter over Bran. Bran said, “P-pavel?”

“Mm, sweetheart?”

“Could you—it’s. Would you not leave? For a bit?”

Jer kissed the top of Bran’s head and said, “He was getting supplies, Bran. We’re not going anywhere unless you tell us to. And even then, we’ll see.”

Between that information and the blankets, the trembling lessened a bit. Jer rocked him through it, Pavel talking softly about how much he liked being here with them, and how impressed he was by Bran. After a bit, Bran spoke up. “I’m not usually like this. Jer will tell you. I’m not.”

“Cuddly and adorable?” Jer asked. “Beg to differ.”

“Needy,” Bran said, sounding exhausted. “I’m—”

“Good at pretending you don’t exist until you absolutely, completely cannot. And for the record, I’m telling Holden he needs to fucking pick up the phone when he leaves for weeks at a time, even if the leaving is the right thing to do. Honestly, you’d think the man hadn’t spent five years juggling three lovers and a wife.”

“You and Yves were managing him for those five years.”

Jer blinked. It was so unusual to hear Bran acknowledge that Holden was human it took him a second to process it. “He needs some management, hm?”

“I’m just…that’s not what I’m good at,” Bran said, sounding small.

“No, but Alix is, she just didn’t need to when Yves and I were around. I’ll talk with her. And you’re good at plenty. There’s no call for you to be good at everything. Then what the hell would any of us do?”

“Besides,” Pavel said quietly, “Holden needs to be needed. Maybe he’s changed since…well. But not that. That’s not the sort of thing that changes.”

“Lord Kareyev over there has a good point.”

Bran yawned. “Lord Kareyev has good points and a good mouth. Nice cock, too.”

Pavel laughed and Jer followed. “At the punch drunk place, are we?”

Bran tilted his head back to give Jer a silly, sunny smile. Jer kissed him, drinking it in a bit. “Bath first, then bed.”

“Bath, then new sheets, then bed,” he said.

Jer looked over at Pavel. “Think we can make that happen?”

Pavel pretended to consider it for a moment. “I believe we have an accord.”

* * *

They woke up late and Bran made them mimosas with fresh orange juice, still looking all the while like he was getting away with something. Jer knew the feeling. There were certain things he suspected would always feel illicit.

Bran taught Pavel how to make omelets. Pavel told him, “I pay my kitchen staff, of course, but they get uneasy around me, so it never feels fair to watch. I read the articles in the paper about how to do things. I’m not very good at it, though.”

“Probably just need practice,” Bran said, and set him to chopping the onions.

Jer was starting to get the feeling that Holden had been one of the few people to actually get to know Pavel. Holden had a natural talent for seeing who people really were, and as young as they’d both been, no doubt Pavel’s shyness and desire not to make others uncomfortable had been ten times worse. It made him wonder if Maria had gotten her hooks in him simply by being the only woman in his orbit to pay attention. Pavel had money and a title and was good looking. He should have been swimming in suitors. Instead, he’d been in love with a village boy and seduced by a manipulative socialite. The whole thing smacked of Pavel just not getting _people._

Jer didn’t think he was simple, exactly, but he made things simple, which was probably a good chunk of what Pavel liked. On his part, something in Pavel’s loneliness called to Jer, made sense to him. He knew what it meant to live surrounded by people and be utterly alone.

Bran curled around Pavel’s back to “teach” him something about sautéing. Pavel seemed to expand into the touch, grasp at it greedily, as though he thoroughly expected it to disappear. Jer wasn’t exactly surprised by the fact that he wanted to wipe away that concern. A little disconcerted, maybe. He didn’t like the sense of being held to anything anymore. 

Jer wondered if it was different if he was the one with the ties in his hand. It was with Lee. Lee didn’t keep Jer captive, he just drew him back now and then. 

Pavel plated what was possibly the ugliest omelet Jer had ever seen and slid it to Jer, looking ashamed. “Bran promises it will taste good.”

“Bran never lies, unless it’s about himself,” Jer assured Pavel. “And I’m evidently hopelessly charmed by grown men willing to learn new skills.”

Pavel’s smile was so wide it had to hurt. Bran mumbled something about gooey insides. Jer said, “I’ll show you gooey,” and proceeded not to make good on that threat at all.

* * *

By the time Holden returned on Friday, Yves in tow for the weekend, Jer had spent an afternoon having lazy, for-old-time’s-sake sex with Alix and getting her on board with pulling Holden’s head out of his ass. And quite a bit more time eating everything Bran put in front of him, reading up on and thinking about places to go next while Bran handled some business intake with Alix, and having what might have been an unreasonable amount of good sex. 

Yves packed Holden off to go settle Bran, hugged Alix and Greta, and herded Jer and Pavel into the library. Once there, he crowded into Jer’s space and kissed him with intent for several minutes before pulling back to say, “Thanks for yelling at Holden.”

“There was no yelling,” Jer said with as much innocence as he could bother to muster. “Was there yelling?” he asked Pavel.

“Jer would never yell, he’s a perfect angel,” Pavel said, which was at once the most sass Jer had ever heard from him and the best response possible.

Jer laughed at Yves’ blink. “Look what I brought home, darling.”

“Did I outsmart myself?” Yves asked, quiet and a little more serious than Jer had expected.

Jer tucked a hand against the small of Yves’ back. “Depends. Were you just looking for me to have a fling?”

Yves focused on Jer. “I—no. Not exactly. But I wasn’t looking to get the three of us replaced, either.”

Jer frowned. “Don’t be an idiot, you know that’s not how this works.”

“Oh. I do. Huh.” Yves tilted his head. “How do I, again?”

“I’m not the only one who left this house. What are you even—”

“I left to accomplish a goal!” Yves bit out. “I left with intention of coming back. I didn’t fucking flee to the corners of the earth, desperate to get as far away as possible, to be anywhere but here. And for your information, asshole, I was looking to make sure you’d have someone with you who would bring you back, not someone who would cater to your every need to be somewhere fucking else.”

Jer forced himself not to tighten his grip, to let go and step back. He’d never wanted to hurt Yves, not even when Yves had the security and love he’d needed most for himself. “Then yes, you fucked up. Because Pavel doesn’t seem interested in caging me. If he did, your plan probably would have failed anyway, since I’ve no interest in anyone’s cage. Not his, not Holden’s, not Lee’s, not _yours_. And fuck you for trying to corral me into one.”

Yves growled so loudly, it seemed to almost be a swallowed scream. Jer balled his fists, his blunted fingernails digging into his palms. In the tense silence, Pavel said, “You…you really are a bit of an idiot, Yves.”

It shocked Jer because Pavel so rarely said anything unkind. It shocked Yves because he seemed to have forgotten Pavel was there. Yves said, “You don’t have the right—”

“Yeah, he does,” Jer cut him off. “You gave it to him when you put a bow around my cock and delivered it to be unwrapped by him, but even if that wasn’t the truth, _I_ want to hear what he has to say, so shut up.”

Pavel looked at Yves, weathering the glare leveled at him. “It’s been five years since his manumission. Slavery still exists in this county unlike the dozens of other places he’s made his way to. Places where he could do whatever he wanted, be whoever he chose to be, and yet he comes back here every few months. You think that’s because he…what? Gets lonely? Needs to be fed? You aren’t paying attention.”

Jer rolled that over in his head. The truth was, he hadn’t thought about much of this. He’d gone places because he’d needed to know the breadth of his boundaries, the infinite spaces of them. And he’d come back because this was where Lee and Yves and Bran and Holden were. It was that simple. These people were…well, his boundaries, as it turned out. The only cages he couldn’t break free of, and only then because he had no desire to. Having Pavel on a journey with him hadn’t changed that. It might have shifted the shape of the fences he had no desire to cut through, jump over. But it hadn’t eliminated any of them.

Sounding small and scared and a million things Jer didn’t want him being, Yves asked, “Jer?”

Jer rubbed a hand over his face and then held the hand out. “C’mere.”

Yves reached out and took the hand. Jer pulled him into his side. “I wasn’t running away from here. I’m still not. I’m running toward…me. The same way you are. And just because my running doesn’t have a set end date the way yours does isn’t the same thing as there not _being_ an end date.”

Yves sniffled in the way one did when pretending to have a cold instead of being about to cry. “You always seem so excited to be leaving. When I go back to school, it’s bittersweet, but you—”

“We’re different. You spent your life making the most of the situation. I spent my life surviving it.”

“The situation itself was different,” Yves said.

“Sure. My point stands.”

“You—you don’t know, though. One day you could find the place that feels right, feels like you were meant to be there, and Pavel could be with you, and you’d have him and you wouldn’t have to—”

“Maybe, I guess,” Jer stopped him. “I…I think this probably is the place I feel like I’m meant to be, where my past is something that explains my present, and the people around me understand both. But even if I’m wrong and you’re right, are you telling me you wouldn’t visit?”

“No,” Yves sighed. “No, I’m telling you I’m greedy and I want you around. I’m telling you I miss you and I’m scared you don’t miss us. Me.”

“And _I’m_ telling _you_ , along with Pavel, evidently, that you’re being dumb. I love you. That’s not going to change.”

Yves shivered and Jer bent down a bit and scooped him up. Yves gave a startled shriek, but settled when Jer sat on the sofa with Yves over his lap. He looked over at Pavel and patted the spot next to him. Pavel looked at Yves. “Would you prefer I left?”

Yves curled even further into Jer. “Maybe…just for a bit? And then—”

Pavel prompted, “And then?”

Yves hid his face in Jer’s chest and said, “And then maybe I can make up what a brat I was to both of you?”

“Or you could do that for Jer, and later we could get to know each other better,” Pavel said softly.

Yves looked over at him, quiet for several moments. “Or that. I’d like that.”

Pavel nodded, and left the room. Yves asked, “Gonna punish me?”

“Will it make you feel better?”

“Probably.”

Jer said, “All right, in a little bit, then. For now, just. Well, I’ve missed you.”

* * *

It was hard to remember there had been a time when Yves had represented a threat. The silence between them was easy. Jer thought maybe they both rested for a bit, not precisely slept, just regained energy in the quiet of the library, the warmth of the sun coming through the window, of each other. Eventually, Yves murmured, “I’m sorry.”

Jer brought a hand up to rub at Yves’ scalp. “What part are you sorry for?”

“The part where I tried to manipulate you.”

Jer supposed that was the part that really mattered, in the end. He said, “I’m sorry I let you think I wouldn’t come back to you.”

“That’s not…I actually know you don’t read minds.”

“Mm. Well, I suppose after a mildly rocky start, we’ve always understood each other rather easily.”

Yves nodded against Jer’s chest. Jer slipped a hand beneath the hem of Yves’ top and rubbed his back. When Yves’ breathing was slowed almost unto sleep, Jer said, “Undress for me.”

Yves grumbled a bit, presumably about having to move, but he followed the direction. Jer placed himself in the middle of the couch so Yves could drape himself over Jer’s lap. For long moments, Jer simply caressed the length of Yves’ spine, the backs of his legs, kneaded at the curve of his ass. 

Then he said, “Count,” and brought his hand down, hard and fast.

Yves’ squawked. “One!”

Jer said, “I love you,” and spanked him again. After every count, Jer said those words, but that didn’t mean he went slow, or easy. He covered the skin of Yves’ thighs, the place where ass met leg, and the entirety of Yves’ butt. 

He kept going through Yves squirming, burying his feet and digging his fingers into the cushions, through Yves’ saying, “Please, please,” after thirty-four, through Yves’ letting a sob free. It wasn’t until sixty-one, that Yves cried, “You love me! You—you love me,” and went limp, accepting it. Jer took him to seventy, and then rearranged them so that Yves was lying atop Jer, shaky and whimpering, but also calm.

Yves cuddled into Jer, who held him, stroking up and down his back. “Well done, so fucking good.”

Yves made a happy noise. Jer laughed softly. Yves said, “Love you.”

* * *

Jer suspected they slept for a bit. When he was starting to get achy he said, “Shower?”

“Depends. You gonna let me fuck your boy in it?”

“He’s not mine, so you’ll have to ask him how he feels about that.”

“Sure,” Yves said, rolling off the couch and pulling Jer to his feet. He sauntered out ahead, giving Jer time to appreciate the bruising that was already starting to form on his lower half. 

When they reached Jer’s room, Yves framed himself in door in all his naked glory and asked Pavel, who’d dropped the book he was reading upon seeing this, “Feel like a shower?”

“Suddenly I do,” Pavel said. Yves laughed and spun away, causing Pavel to trip over himself as he got off the bed. 

Sympathetically, Jer said, “I know.”

He took Pavel’s hand and the two of them trailed in Yves’ wake to the master bedroom. Thankfully, nobody seemed to be using the space, so there was no awkwardness about getting to the en suite and turning on the one shower in the house that was easily large enough for three to four grown men.

Yves started the water and stepped in, hissing as the warmth hit his abused skin. He looked at them and asked, “Well? Aren’t you going to come spoil me? I think I’ve earned it, haven’t I?”

Jer rolled his eyes and pulled his clothes off. Pavel undressed as well, the two of them stepping into the confines of the shower. Yves pulled Pavel to him and said, “Jer loves me,” before kissing him.

Jer said, “Easy, gorgeous,” pulling Pavel back a bit. 

Philosophically, Pavel said, “I imagine you’d be hard not to love.”

Yves frowned and looked at Jer. “Was this what it was like when I wanted to fuck you at first?”

“Confusing as shit and disconcerting that you were made of rainbows and sugar? Yes.”

“Hrm,” Yves said. He told Pavel, “I’d like to fuck you.”

Pavel leaned back against Jer. “Dare I ask why?”

Jer caressed his thumb over Pavel’s hip. Yves said, “Mostly because you’re sexy.”

“Mostly,” Pavel repeated.

“A little because it’ll make me feel better about you taking him away.”

“I’m not taking him away.”

“Not forever,” Yves agreed, and Jer was glad to see that his body language said he believed his words. “But for months and months at a time. When he wants it. You will.”

“And this will make you feel better?”

Yves tipped his head back into the water for a moment before answering, “It’s kind of hard for someone who hasn’t been a sex slave to understand.”

Pavel twisted to look at Jer, who found himself agreeing. Pavel said, “Try me.”

Jer and Yves shared a glance. After a moment, Jer said, “You can find out a lot about a person in how they bottom to you. In sex in general, really, but—different things on the flip.”

Slowly, Pavel nodded. “All right. One condition.”

Yves tilted his head. Pavel said, “Jer fucks you at the same time. He sets the tempo.”

Yves took a breath. “Oh, see, that was clever. And I very much accept your condition.”

Pavel smiled, sweet but also a bit hungry, and leaned forward to kiss Yves. Jer reached over to where the bottle of lube sat next to the shampoo, and spent some time prepping Pavel and lubing himself while watching them kiss. It was undeniably sexy, but also sweet, the two of them getting a sense of each other. 

Jer turned the heat on the water up a bit, and pulled Yves out from under it, sitting on the built-in bench and having Yves straddle him, Yves’ back to Jer’s chest. Yves pressed down, too eager to let gravity do its job and hissed when his bruised parts landed, but shuddered in the way that Jer knew meant the sensation was working for him. Jer said, “Perfect, fuck.”

Pavel came and straddled them facing Jer, lowering himself on Yves even while stealing kisses from Jer. Yves said, “Hey,” but didn’t sound too bothered, for all that. Jer drove up and both Pavel and Yves moaned, lightly. Pavel took the hint and kissed Yves, dividing his attentions between the two of them. Jer took things slow to begin with, until he was feeling restless beneath his skin.

He said, “Pavel, stand up and face the wall.”

Pavel did so, and Yves didn’t waste any time following. Jer stood and bracketed both of them in his arms, driving just a bit violently into Yves, who threw his head back against Jer’s shoulder and said, “Yes, please.”

Jer said, “You come before he does, and you’re getting another spanking.”

Yves’ laughter was breathy. “Not sure that’s as much of a deterrent as you were hoping.” Nonetheless, he moved his hand from the wall and Jer felt Pavel buck, heard his somewhat high-pitched moan as Yves fisted his cock.

“Slut,” Jer said fondly, and drove in hard enough to make Yves whine a bit, Pavel say, “Oh, yes, like that.”

After that, it was less about rhythm and more about chasing the sounds of the others, Yves’, “there you go, yes,” as Pavel came apart under him, the way Yves seemed to melt into both of them as he finally let go. Jer slammed into him one last time, making both Yves and Pavel go to their toes and growled, “Who loves you?”

“Yeahyeahyeahyeah,” Yves said, still coming down from his orgasm.

When Jer’s resistance to sliding to the floor failed, all three of them went down in a messy heap. The water was losing some of its warmth, but at that point it felt good, the heat of two other bodies and orgasm needing to be evened out.

Pavel said, “Soap is…there should be soap?”

Jer managed to pat some part of him. Yves said, “Water’s good. Water works.”

“Okay,” Pavel said, and they stayed like that until the water got cool enough to be genuinely uncomfortable. At which point, they pulled each other out as a team effort, wrapped each other in large towels, and stumbled down the hall to Yves’ bedroom—the closest belonging to either of them—for a nice nap.

* * *

That night, the dinner table was full. Alix and Greta were seated toward the kitchen, with Holden to Alix’s right, and Bran on his other side. Yves took the chair beside Bran, and Jer sat down next to him, leaving Pavel a seat between him and Greta. 

Pavel said to Alix, “Thank you for hosting me in your home, it’s lovely.”

Alix took a sip of water and said, “The boys particularly, mm?”

Jer snickered. “The men aren’t so bad, either.”

Alix and Yves laughed at that. Holden’s mouth was twisted in something that might have been a smile, as though Holden himself were unsure as to how he felt. He asked, “How long are you staying, do you think?”

Pavel tilted his head. “I—”

“He’s asking because he wants me to stay for a bit and thinks I will if you do,” Jer said. “Not because you’ve worn out your welcome.”

Holden blinked. “Oh. Ah, no. You haven’t.” He looked at Jer. “Am I wrong?”

Jer shrugged. “I’ll leave when I leave. That would be true even if he were to stay when I left.”

“But it makes it easier for you to stay, just now, with him here,” Holden said.

“Doesn’t make it harder,” Jer agreed, running a finger along Pavel’s leg. Pavel raised an eyebrow at him.

Yves rolled his eyes at Jer. “You enjoying yourself?”

Jer grinned. “You implying I _shouldn’t_ be enjoying my former owner’s jealousy that _his_ former owner and childhood sweetheart likes me better?”

“He’s not jealous of Pavel, Jer,” Bran said, and the table went still. 

“Bran, sweetheart—” Holden started. Bran looked at him, waiting to be told what to do, but at the last moment, Holden seemed to realize that even if it made things easier for Bran, this wasn’t an appropriate moment to impose his will. Holden sighed and went back to eating. “Nevermind.”

Jer forced himself to soften his voice. It wasn’t Bran’s fault there was a lifetime of history between Holden and himself and no matter how much Jer loved Holden, he’d always hate him a little bit, too. “Hate to break your heart, darling, but I’m not you. That only makes it sweeter.”

Holden stopped eating. “Jer—”

Jer waited. When Holden didn’t say anything, he said softly, “I know you had to leave. I know he would have killed you, or driven you to it, sooner or later. And I know you both knew I could survive. But knowing all that doesn’t change the fact that you made the choice. It being the _right_ choice doesn’t change that fact. Because in the end I spent almost twenty years with nothing and nobody, just my eyes on a horizon that was a knife to my wrists. Five years of benevolent ownership doesn’t alter that or overcome it or apologize for it, because there is no way to do so.”

“What would you have us do?” Alix asked softly.

Jer shook his head. “It’s not what I’d have you do. It’s that Holden’s got no right to be upset that someone cares about me without caring about him more. And that’s what bothers you, isn’t it? That he looks at me the way he used to look at you, only with more depth, because none of us are children anymore. We know what it means to look at someone that way.”

Holden smiled, the edges of it wobbly. “It’s that you are starting to look at _him_ that way. And unlike Bran or Yves or Lee, there’s nobody he goes home to. And you are highly worth going home to.”

Jer felt the sharp edge of that statement slide between his ribs, make it hard to breathe. “Then be jealous, but don’t let it stand in the way of your awareness that I _deserve_ that kind of affection. Deserve to have someone who appreciates it from me.”

“I’m trying. I swear, Jer. I’m trying.”

Jer knew. What was strange was the sense of not having the same patience for those attempts as he always had before. That, though, wasn’t Holden’s fault. Jer pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’ll stay, for a bit. Pavel?”

“You wish me to be here?” Pavel asked softly.

“I do,” Jer said simply, awed by how easy that particular truth was.

“Then I’m here.”

* * *

Jer finished brushing his teeth that evening and came back to his room to find Pavel in the bed, leaning against the headboard, waiting for him. Jer asked, “Not sleepy?” meaning it to have the edge of a leer, but Jer _was_ tired, deep beneath his skin.

Pavel rolled his eyes. “How about we both pretend we’re in our mid- to late-forties and can’t have non-stop fulfilling sex?”

Jer huffed a bit in acknowledgment and crawled into the bed, laying his head on Pavel’s lap. Pavel threaded his fingers through Jer’s hair and said, “When I met him—he was. I know, your parents _sold_ you, his parents did. But mine were just…I was property, I think, in a way. Not the same way, but a way all the same. And Holden saw a person. Saw me. It was the first time that had ever happened. Even if he hadn’t been beautiful and funny and sweet in that way he has, I would have fallen in love with him.”

Jer nodded against his leg. In a way, things between him and Holden hadn’t been so different. He was well aware the power of that feeling, that moment of realizing someone wanted you for something more than your economic value or appearance. 

“When Maria sold him, and he had _told_ me not to put him in her name, made me aware of the risk, it—I tried to drink myself to death. Argounov wouldn’t let me near him when I finally managed to track him down, and this man, this _one person_ who’d wanted nothing more than me, was gone and I was alone and it was my fault.”

“What changed?” Jer asked.

“Yulia. The children’s mother. She’d been a childhood friend and her family was in financial straights. She needed help and I needed someone I _could_ help. It wasn’t love, but in our circles, it was fairly close. And then David was born and I had been so terrified that like my parents I would look at him and see nothing but the necessary heir. He was…he was _so_ ugly as a baby and I couldn’t stop staring at him. Every time he cried it felt like I had failed him in some way. So I learned to live for him, and later for Lisa, and if it wasn’t the same, it was enough.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I think you need to talk about what it was like, those years after the two of them left, and I’ve found sharing a truth helps make it easier for others to respond in kind.”

“And if I refuse?”

“Then you refuse.”

The simplicity of the response was settling. “And then he showed back up again.”

“He did,” Pavel agreed. “With his wife and his daughter and his harem of gorgeous men.”

Jer smiled. 

“And it was like dying all over again. I drank a lot. David came and dried me out, yelled at me about being a grown man. He was right, of course. There was nothing for it but to focus on my now-grown children, which wasn’t quite so helpful as when they needed me there every waking moment. But I did it, existed. So much of it feels blank, now. I remember the children, everything to do with them. When I think of myself in the equation, though…it’s almost as if I wasn’t there. And then, when I’d stopped even imagining life could be anything other than a slow, forced plod, a man boarded my boat and looked at me like I was there and real and mattered. He said things that made me laugh, and when he touched me—Lord, Jer. When you touch me.” Pavel swallowed.

“C’mere,” Jer murmured, and shifted until the two of them were lying face to face. “’M too tired for talking.”

“Then don’t,” again, that plain acceptance of Jer’s needs.

“The morning,” Jer said, and pulled Pavel in, holding him against his chest.

* * *

Jer woke to Pavel slipping out of the bed. He wasn’t ready to move, which as it turned out was fine, because Pavel mussed his hair and said, “Go back to sleep.”

If he’d been more awake, he might have asked what Pavel was up to, but as it was, he just closed his eyes again and did as told. The next time he woke up it was to the smell of coffee, and Pavel bringing a breakfast tray in. Jer asked, “Bran?”

“Fox.”

Jer pushed himself into a sitting position. “Anyone down there?”

“Greta and Alix. The latter of whom suggested breakfast in bed, so I think there might have been some interference being run.”

“No doubt,” Jer said. “Alix keeps attempting to create order in this world and keeps having someone, generally, Bran, Holden, or me, fuck it up.”

“I’m inclined to believe she might deserve some of that from you.”

Jer grabbed one of the muffins off the tray Pavel had set on the bed, and took a bite, washing it down with a sip from the mug of coffee next to it. “They tried, you know. Same as you tried to get him back, they tried to take me, buy me.”

Pavel looked at him. “Do you think it was enough in my case?”

Jer took another sip of coffee. “Well, well, Lord Kareyev. That’s just playing dirty.”

Pavel shrugged. Jer said, “It’s…let’s say there are two ways kids who are raised as commodities and sold as property handle it. There are more, but in big swaths, it’s fair to say that there are Holdens and there are Jers. Holdens fight it, probably because that’s all they know how to do. Jers look at the situation, ask themselves what the options are, and when they don’t come up with any, they force themselves to think of themselves in the same terms as the world. I was _born_ property. Being sold to Argounov just formalized it.”

Pavel swallowed in a way that sounded like it hurt. Jer took some more of the muffin. “Holdens die in captivity. Honestly, Bran’s as submissive as the fucking runt of the litter and then some, and he almost died because he wasn’t born or raised as a commodity and he couldn’t be made into one. Jers, though. Jers survive.”

“Do they?” Pavel asked quietly.

Jer blinked. “If a physical being is always property, does the lack of emotional survival mean anything?”

“I’m not well positioned to answer that.”

Jer narrowed his eyes. “My problem was Holden. Who took one fucking look at me and decided there was something there and then went and pursued it.” He closed his eyes and exhaled, forcing muscles that had knotted up to relax. “A thing cannot love. But I loved him. I loved him so intensely that as much as I hated both of them for leaving, I knew Alix made the right choice. Because Holden would have died. I’m not Alix, I’ve never had the ability to bend reality to my will, only to accept it. Her power over it saved him. My acceptance of it would have killed him. And she knew I could accept, _would_ accept. So it was the only choice, really.”

“Okay,” Pavel said.

Jer laughed and opened his eyes. “That was the most disbelieving agreement I’ve ever heard out of anyone, and I’ve lived with Holden Larsson.”

“Well, Holden might be free, but he’s not an aristocrat.”

Jer laughed again. “Wow, you’re really something this morning.”

“He taught you how to love and be loved and then they left you there. It wasn’t an accident, it wasn’t a stupid, terrible, blind mistake, it was a _choice_ , Jer.”

“You don’t actually have to tell me.”

Pavel took a slow breath. 

“I survived. I—I did what I was told to do and I remembered how to be a thing and when I forgot a beating or two was enough to jog my memory.”

Jer had seen Pavel look uncertain, scared, worried, concerned, and melancholy. He wasn’t any of those things now. Free or not, a man who had been a slave for most of his adult life knew when a free man was infuriated, and even now, it took Jer concentrating not to be scared by it. Pavel must have seen something in the moments Jer needed, because he turned to the wall and said, “Sorry, I’m sorry,” over and over again until his breathing evened out.

When the wave had passed, Jer stood up and walked to him, wrapped himself around Pavel’s back. Pavel said, “I just. The thought of him hurting you for being human, I—between you and Holden, I truly want to lash him to a post and take a bullwhip to him.”

Jer rubbed at Pavel’s stomach. “Does it scare you to know that I would like watching? That I find the very desire on your part attractive? That I’d fuck you right then and there, so he could hear how careful I was to give you pleasure of my own accord?”

Pavel shuddered. “No. You don’t scare me.”

“Just how you feel about me?”

“ _Just_ that.”

Jer kissed the back of his neck. “After they left, he liked to taunt me with it. While he was fucking me. Taking me to events he knew Holden would be at with Yves. Sensuous, bright-eyed Yves who was one of the only slaves in the universe to manage a path between acceptance and fighting, able to make sense of a world that made no fucking sense. Argounov especially liked to do it after parties where we’d seen them, and I—I told myself that Holden wasn’t so very special. That another slave would come along, another would—”

Jer tore himself away from Pavel and paced. “And then I was getting older and the weight didn’t stay off as easy, so he gave me less food, and it took longer to do the makeup because there were more lines and the other slaves got younger and if they weren’t scared of me for the fact of my tenure then they were dismissive of me or—or disdainful. None of it felt good. After a while, I forced myself to forget what good felt like. Made myself start being a realist again.” 

He sat down on the bed, digging his fingers into the blankets. “Half the time I starved myself. Hunger didn’t feel good, but it was something I could control. I worked out too much. A slave’s skin isn’t his own, I couldn’t hurt myself enough physically to completely wipe away what was going on inside, but I could come close. My dreams stopped being of Argounov letting them buy me and started being of timing things right, of making certain I didn’t mess up. If I hung myself, it needed to be done so my neck would break, I didn’t want to gasp for air. If I took pills, it needed to be something that would take even if my stomach were pumped. Cutting my wrists was out, too easy to be found in time. I didn’t have access to a firearm.”

Pavel was crying. It was silent, he was entirely still, but there were tears sliding down his face. Jer looked at the floor. “And then he sold me to Holden and Alix. In hindsight, I realize it’s because money for a washed-up slave is better than no money, and because Holden actually would have murdered him if he’d done anything else. At that moment, though, it felt like one last emotional knife twist. Like knowing your dog has a favorite toy and giving it to him after it’s been destroyed by a cat. Nobody wins.”

Pavel moved then to sit next to Jer. “I think it probably was, a bit, for him.”

“Yes, well. Probably.”

“Do you know where he got it wrong?”

“Holden’s a fucking obsessive bastard who kept his eye on me all those years?”

“No, Jer.”

“Ah—”

“You weren’t washed up. And Holden kept his eyes on you because he couldn’t take them off. He probably even tried. You were out of his reach. He couldn’t have you. He would have fought like hell to forget the way you tasted, the way you moved underneath him, inside him, the way your voice calmed him when everything felt like too much, your arms held him tethered, not letting him fly off.”

“Pavel.”

“I kept my eyes on Holden without even knowing where he was for all those reasons. I _know_ what it is to try and forget. So I know exactly why you couldn’t. I know I wouldn’t have survived had I not had something to cling to, Yulia, the children, my personhood. And now, now I also know that even having Alix and freedom and this work and Yves and Valor, I know why Holden was waiting and it was because he couldn’t do anything else. In all the ways he’d bound you, you’d bound him just as tightly.”

“Pavel,” Jer said again.

Pavel kissed him, sweet and aggressive all at once. “Jer. You love Holden, Yves, Bran, and Lee. You care for Andrei, Mona, Alix and Greta. Me. At least a bit. And you _are_ loved or cared for, by all of us. Maybe by the rules of this world you were born a thing and sold as a thing and kept as a thing. But in truth a thing cannot love and be loved. You survived that and came out of it. There’s nothing more that has to be accepted or taken. Nothing.”

Jer considered Pavel for a long moment. “I think there might be some things I _want_ to accept, now.”

“They are yours.”

* * *

They spent the morning finishing muffins, lying close to each other, and talking about things they wanted to do but had never gotten around to. Pavel said, “I’ve always wanted a dog.”

Jer laughed. “Seriously?”

“Mother and father found them indecorous, and Yulia was allergic, and then I was concerned the kids might be, and.” Pavel shrugged. “I never got around to it.”

“The kids have been out of the house for, what, seven years?”

“I might also have issues about purchasing things to love.”

Jer nibbled at his shoulder. “You’re getting a dog.”

“I am, huh?”

“You are. We’re gonna take it on a road trip to Vernelle.”

“What’s in Vernelle?”

“Waterfalls, at least, that’s what the travel books tell me. I’ve never seen one, and I want to.”

“Vernelle is almost completely on the other side of the continent. We could fly.”

“Sure, but you’d use that as an excuse to put off getting a dog.”

“It wouldn’t really make sense—”

Jer snickered. Pavel pushed lightly at him. “Are you afraid of flying?”

“No, it’s on my list of things to try, but Vernelle is first, and there’s a bunch of places we could stop with our dog on the way.”

“Oh, it’s our dog now, is it?”

“I convinced you to get it, I deserve part ownership.”

“I could get you your own dog,” Pavel said softly. 

Jer kissed him, a quick, appreciative press of his lips. “Even if we each got one, they’d both end up being ours, wouldn’t they? Isn’t that how this works?”

“Does either of us really know how this works?”

“Probably not, but we’ve got a whole road trip to figure it out.”

“There and back,” Pavel said.

“Or wherever we want to go onto.”

“Until you miss Lee or Yves or Bran. Holden.”

“Or you miss your kids.”

“Whichever comes first.”

Jer smiled. “Right. We’ll just…see what we see. Together.”

Pavel burrowed into Jer’s chest. “See what we see.”

**Author's Note:**

> There are probably gonna be codas. Because dogs. And some other stuff I have emotions about.
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